Spotted this butterfly on our way to class.
I felt a curious resistance going into the institute today – I wasn’t really sure I was up for it, having worked hard all week both in standing poses and the parivrrta seated poses, as well as in my own practice.
I felt still more apprehension as Sunita walked in, remembering Wednesday’s tough class. I needn’t have worried – she began the sequence with Supta Baddha Konasana followed by lots of Supta Padangusthasana – absolutely right for how I was feeling. In fact ever since arriving, each class seems to have been perfectly placed for what I’ve needed at the time – which is a really good sign that I’m connected into the right flow.
A nice class where we worked on rooting into the sockets of the legs and opening the groin at the front throughout – supta padangusthasana 1 and 2, UH padangusthasana 1 and 2, trikonasana and sirsasana variations maintaining what had been learnt. It was a shame that we had a bit of a long lecture at the end of class where she fired questions at people not doing sirsasana because of neck injuries, leaving us too short of time for sarvangasana. We did halasana / karnapidasana instead – here we had to make sure the eyes were not moving towards the brain, but down towards the chest. This really quietened the mental state in the pose and we rolled down very carefully so as to mindfully preserve this state. We finished in uttanasana – again without shaking the head or disturbing the mental quietness we had created. Ending in uttanasana after sarvangasana is something I’ve only ever done in Pune, but it seems to work well when there is no time for savasana.
On the way home I spotted the flower barrow so bought some plants to pot up for the balcony, it’s the small things….
I spent a long time on the computer organising this year’s yoga holiday to the Maldives and needed a nice lengthy restorative practice to recover. What really came home to me during this practice is that spending a month here for me is in some ways not about the yoga I am taught in classes, but how that yoga enables me to discover things on my own mat. The body and mind are ready for the real work – my own quiet, personal practice.
Tomorrow I am off to join Jenny for the day at KARE – an Ayurvedic retreat in the hills about an hour from Model Colony.
13th February – Women’s Class – Sunita
Supta Baddha Konasana – catching the shins and lengthening from groin to the knee. Insert your palms under the buttock and see here can you widen more? Arms over the head also.
Supta Padangusthasana 1 and repeat – First with bent leg holding the shin, rotating the root of the thigh away. Here we learnt how to stop the down leg from shrinking as you bring the leg up. So we lifted the down leg heel a little and elongated the entire back of the leg to extend that leg further away. This helped to open the backs of the knees and feel more contact of the back leg on the floor and we were better able to stop it shrinking – the leg should not come towards the brain, your brain has to go to the heel.
Supta Padangusthasana 2 – Trying to keep opposite buttock down. Rooting deep into the socket and rotating as the leg goes down. Maintaining the extension of the down leg.
Supta Padangusthasana 2 – This time we took a thick mat to lie on and folded the sticky mat several times to make a flat wedge that ran from the back of the knee to the shoulder blade on the down side – so that the buttock could really press into something, at the same time we rolled the blanket for the leg that was going to the side – here we were so much better balanced. We could really work on the correct extension and people were able to open much more.
Supta Padangusthasana – leg across the body, we strictly had to keep the buttock pressing into the folded sticky mat to take the leg across PRESS!
SBK – no props – now is it better than the first SBK?
UH Padangusthasana x 2 – We faced the bar and had a belt looped around the upper pipe. Outer thigh crease down, standing leg straight (watch the foot doesn’t turn out), pelvic rim upward.
Parsva UH Padangusthasana x 2 – She showed on someone how we were not opening the groin at the front. PRESS the buttock forward and standing thigh backward and grip into the socket of that leg (if you had the sole of the foot on the wall it would allow you to really ground the bone into the socket) and pelvic rim upward and pelvis opening, roll the standing leg pelvic bone away from up leg.
Trikonasana – A clever person would know that the actions are the same here and they would have done with front foot to the wall rather than going with the habit of back foot to the wall.
Parsva UH Padangusthasana quickly into Trikonasana – to understand how the work is the same – your buttock bone to the person in front of you, don’t let it touch the person behind you. In Trikonasana front toes up, back arm over head to wall, pressing the foot into the wall, to really root the front leg femur deep inwards, at the same time pressing the buttock deep forward to open the groin at the front.
Sirsasana, eka pada sirsasana, parsva eka pada sirsasana – Same work of rooting seep into the hip socket.
Halasana, karnapidasana – The eyes should not go to the brain or it will cause a headache, the eyes to the chest side. Rolling down carefully with bent legs so as not to disturb at all the halasana state of the mind.
Uttanasana – carefully preserving the brain quiet like halasana
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